§ Lord Hyltonasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether it is true that the long-term unemployed in Northern Ireland are denied the higher rates of supplementary benefit (unlike pensioners, widowed mothers, et cetera, in Northern Ireland); whether the rules affecting the long-term unemployed in Northern Ireland have always differed from those applying to similar people in the rest of the United Kingdom; and, if so, what justification there can be for such difference in treatment.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Lyell)The higher longterm scale rate is not payable to long-term unemployed claimants aged under 60 in Northern Ireland. The relevant rules are, and always have been, the same in Northern Ireland as elsewhere in the United Kingdom.